25
by Connie Nervegas
Summary: Raph keeps a short journal after he and Don find themselves enslaved on a distant and sparse planet. RATED M FOR BEING REALLY DEPRESSING.


_I've been listening to depressing music all day. It's been dark and rainy. I didn't eat until 4pm. My vacation ends tomorrow. I'm pulling my hair out because AlexHamato is still stuck in the army. So you get HORRIBLE ANGST! I know that people will be thrilled. I had this idea for April's Diary, but decided it was too dark to use and made sort of a Raph's Diary kind of thing._

 _And I was actually thinking of 1. The old Fable game when they keep torturing you for a year if you can't find the key in the warden's office when he's reciting horrible poetry and 2. That scene in Waterworld where they "recycle." If you've never seen Waterworld, then you didn't miss much. It used to be on TV a lot when I was a kid and I remember having lots of questions/ideas about it as a kid. So I wasn't really going for a wider societal theme here, despite the depressing imagery._

Day 17:

I don't know why they let me have these special things. I got a paper and pen and now I get real food like the guards when they eat their lunch at the table in the other room. I know the other people in the other cells eat that stinky ass shit they tried to feed me the first day, same as Don. He's in his cell next door and he won't hardly move again and I know they're going to drag his ass out and make him fight soon because they called for #24 today. He gets called twice as much as me.

The sun come through our little windows on the north side of the building and it was warm and I told him to move into it, but he said he was tired and didn't get up.

And why don't they make me go work like the others! And with Don working twice as much as any of the other guys in the cells.

I give up asking Don what's up with all this. He said that he's got special talent and he's making use of it or some vague shit like that.

The first day I woke up down here, he asked questions they didn't like. I don't even remember what he asked. Probably where we were and how we got here. And they took everything off him. All his gear and everything and chucked him in the ring ahead of me for it. He's had real hard luck since then. I'm used to being the fuck up that gets dumped on. I still can't believe they took all his stuff. He looks kind of small now.

And he's sick. I can tell. He just lays there if he don't have to go work or go out to fight. They called me yesterday, but I finished the guy quick. I don't care about these other poor fuckers. I just do it fast. I guess I'm not a big crowd pleaser because of it so they don't call me that much. I told Don we don't ever tell Leo if he finds us. Or maybe we should and then he can send us away for it.

Day 18:

Don woke up in the night screaming again and he won't come to my end of his cell so I can talk to him or at least be closer. He said he smells too bad now to be around me and I said it was bullshit. I smell too. He's gotta protect me from his body odor now? I asked how he got these guards to give me this notebook and pen and why I get better food than everybody else. He just fell back asleep. He can hardly stay sitting up when he's in there. I've been doing tallies on the wall and now I can write in this book better. At first I tried to work out where we are, but it's some other dimension or planet or something. So who knows.

They made him fight yesterday and he didn't come back right away and I punched my wall a few times. The crowd got real wild and I thought they were cheering because he must be getting cut up. I can't get out of here. I tried. These bars don't move no way I try. The food kind of just shows up when I'm asleep. I tried to stay awake, but I can't. There's a gully for waste and sewer stuff and I can tell it goes outside, but it's too small. Once every few days these guards come by with big ass hoses and spray the shit down the gully and you with it. Don didn't bother to get out of the way today. He said he liked feeling clean from the water. But it's cold. So now he's cold. I said he's an idiot for somebody so smart.

I counted seven got tore up in the ring today. I saw seven pulled out through the door anyway. I think they might take more out the other side. Two went in the cells down at the east end. I heard lots of screaming from a girl down towards the room where the screaming comes from. I never been anywhere but this cell and the ring and don't know what else is here. Don might know. He said they got communication towers or something. I want to shake him. He won't tell me anything.

Day 19:

They took Don away real early this morning and didn't bring him back until night. All I got to do all day is write in this stupid thing and watch other people. At least I can write shit down to pass time. I think it's hard for me to think of shit good enough to write down. I read it back and it looks like I hardly wrote anything for having so much time. I spent ¾ of my time watching Don when he's here or looking up and down for somebody to come get me. I hope it ain't Mike. I know he's not a baby, but I hate seeing him ask questions about shit that I don't want to say. Leo just kind of knows and cuts it down and it's over. He don't need big explanations on why there's evil everywhere. Just get the job done.

But that ain't true I guess. Leo just won't talk about shit. At least Mike lets you know if something is bothering him. Maybe Leo's just all rotten on the inside, all festered with questions he won't ask.

They threw Don in here with me. He's still got no gear and I hate saying that he's naked, but he is. I mean, we don't wear all that much, but he don't got anything at all and it's wrong. And he can't sit up and just blinks slow. They said they need that other cell now for somebody new.

They only give us one plate and it was that same food the guards have. I said Don should eat it and he said he was full because he gets lunch when he works. He said they feed him when they take him away. I said it can't be much because he's losing weight. And why would they feed him again that black slop they feed everybody else when he gets back and he don't touch it at all? He said he gets bonus food for working so hard for them.

He was up screaming again and I held on to him this time and told him to shut up and relax and he's got nothing to be scared of in my cell. He said we won't be here much longer. I knew he had some kind of plan! He won't tell me because I'll fuck it up.

Day 20:

They tried to take Don away again to work. I said they were going to have to kill me to get in here this time because he can't even stand. He just lays there and I prop him up and talk to him and he talks back, but he won't say much. He said he got nothing to say worth me hearing now. The guards had some little powwow about whether or not they want to risk hurting "the big bull" and I guess they call me that or something.

Don woke up and said I needed to let him leave because it was important. He has to go work so we can go home. I think he's working towards something and I wish he would let me know! I can't do jack shit in here! They hardly let me out to fight now! I said it wasn't happening again and if they're so desperate for work then why don't they have me out working? I just sit here on my ass all day and wait for him!

They said they need "the doctor" now and blasted me in the face with something and I woke up in the cell alone and Don was gone.

Then I heard Leo's voice and I nearly screamed. But I could tell he was playing nice to one of these guards. I saw he was down at the other end of the place and in a really long hood. He looked like one of those things in Lord of the Rings that wears black long hoods. I can't remember but it seems like something did. And he talked real quiet and sweet. He said he was here to buy slaves and he wanted them of his own kind because that's how we do things on earth, you know. I don't know why he wasn't just fighting his way down here to let me out. That guard brought him down here and I got way back in the cell, to pretend I didn't like him. It's easier if they can't see the look on your face. I could see him under his hood and his eyes were on the floor. He don't need to see or hear me to know I'm in here. He asked if this one was strong enough to work. The guard said this one kills many in his fights quickly and I'm a big waste as entertainment because I work too quick. Now he'll probably just leave me here.

Leo's voice is always too nice. He sounds too nice for what he really is. He said he needed somebody strong that wouldn't die on him quick like the last one he bought and then stood there fussing about price and my medical condition. He said it stank in here and how could he know that I don't have a disease and he wanted a doctor to look at me first. I still hung back and didn't talk because I figured that I should act the part of beaten down slave. I thought he might ask me questions, but he didn't even try to talk to me. I sorta wanted to tell him off for it. I think it was me just wanted him to talk to me at all.

And Mikey wasn't there.

Leo went away to go find a doctor and talk about money.

Day 21:

Leo came back the next day in his black hood with that short alien bitch that looks like a fat little dog who said we were not to talk to them now because we were stupid enough to get stuck down here and gave us our numbers. I'm #25. Don was already taken away to work before I woke up and my full plate was already here.

Leo said: I'm your new master and you're coming with me. I would tell you my name, but you're never to call me anything but Master.

I know he heard that line in a movie one time.

I spit at him through the bars and said a bunch of terrible shit to him because that's what I should do if I'm getting bought.

He didn't move but he twitched some.

He said that I need to come real quietly so they can collect his other property before we leave. I guess he left his other hood in the coat room. I thought fuck Leo. Just buy a new elf hood when we get home. We need to find Don and get out of here!

But I thought a second later that he meant Don. So he bought Don too while he was gone. Leo looks different. His face is all changed. He's kind of bug eyed and his face is swelled up. I think he's allergic to the mold down here. Don can flush out his sinuses for him later maybe.

I wanted to just go OKAY and run out the cell and behave real good for him. But I have to be a rude slave, so I said they weren't going to take me without a fight and shit like that. So they opened the cell and wanted to knock me out with that flash stick again. But I sort of tried to freak out like FREEDOM! My door is open! Just shackle me and I'll come so I can see my homeworld again. I don't know. I tried to remember something I saw on General Hospital once when Jerry Jax held everybody hostage at the Metro Court.

So they marched us out and I thought Leo might try to perform like a douche bag and tell me how to show him respect, but he didn't say anything at all and walked next to me. The guard looked at him funny so he went ahead of me a few paces. Leo looked down at the ground a lot.

I hadn't even seen the outside of this place yet. It's all tan dirt with little dead twiggy shrubs and dust blew around and Leo's hood flew up and blew away. He didn't try to catch it and said it was too hot. But there were his katanas and all his gear and he looked like good old Leo. All bug eyed about honor and goodness and stubborn and tougher than all of us.

They took us towards a building made out of a sandy clay brick and it was fucking hot out there! We were both sweating as soon as the sun hit us full on. And then Leo pulled his swords and clipped the heads off both the guards without looking at either of them, took their keys and unshackled me.

I never hugged that son of a bitch harder in my life.

But I could tell something wasn't right with Leo because he didn't hug me back and let me pick him up and swing him around without scuffling back. We headed towards the building. I hadn't noticed that Leo had an earpiece and he put a finger to his ear and said: Mikey, is Don in here? Is this the right building?

Mike said in the earpiece: Yeah, this is the death house.

I was like death house? I asked Leo what the fuck that meant. Death house? I mean I know what death and house mean. Is it like a cemetery?

Leo forced the big door open because he needed something to do besides giving me a straight answer and we went inside. It was real dark and I could see a dull orange fire on the brick inside. It was just a narrow little entry that turned into a big room. I never smelled anything so awful in my life.

There was a bunch of piles of clothes sorted on some wooden tables and these tables probably used to be brown but they all looked mucky and black from soot or stinky filth or whatever. And piles of clothes and another pile of cell phones and electric shit that came from other dimensions.

Yeah and then... there was a pile of people's parts like arms and legs and bones and stuff like they were thrown into a pile near this other door and there was another one of those sewer gullies with blood and other god-knows crap flowing out of it and that must be the smell outside.

And a big brick incinerator and there's Don, holding this cloth to his face and coughing and he was sweating and black from soot. And there was a body inside that fire that he was cremating I think. I don't know what they did with the ashes. Maybe they just blew away outside? But there was something else funky going on.

There was a big boiling stove in the room and it had this melty foul pot the size of a person and it was full to the top with boiling yellow crud. Don had a work table all bloody with bone saws and shit and another poor guy all cut open and a lot of the flesh cut away. And there was all these big stone plastic crates full of jars.

As soon as Don saw us, he just fell right on the floor in front of us. Leo said that we were going home now. Then somebody knocked on the door. I went right to kill mode. I knew it would be a guard there to take Don away after his shifts cutting up dead people or whatever horrible stuff he's been up to in here.

But it was Mikey. He said lots of nice things that didn't match how he looked in his face. It's hard to say nice stuff when you're in a room full of cut up corpses. Mikey asked: What did they have Donnie doing here? They called him a doctor. Is he a mortician?

Leo said: They feed their slaves by emulsifying the dead for their food source. They don't have much water here.

I think I'm the dumb one in the family. Don volunteered to spend all this time working hard cutting up dead people to trade me real food while he was eating this rotten shit he was making every day and getting sicker and sicker until they wouldn't feed him at all because it was a waste. That's why they tossed him in with me. I had this sudden feeling like I wanted to go throw up and it was partly because I was so stupid and why hadn't I thought to do something like this for him? I shoulda done this. I'm a lot stronger than him. Why didn't I take better care of him?

Leo told Mike to take us back to the control room or some place with a teleportation thing that would take us all home and wait for him. I asked what dumbass fucking thing are you up to fearless? I mean he just got here. I'm not leaving him alone with these sick fuckers for a minute. And Don's maybe dying here.

Leo said to me: I'm going to kill all of them before we leave as payment for what they've done to you both.

He's all cool and you know. Kinda scares me with that calm shit. He needs to at least get mad about it while he's cutting off their heads. I said he wasn't going without me. I'm still strong thanks to Don. I'm going to help him clean this world off the map. Leo said that he needed me to help Mike send the freed prisoners back to their worlds and that he can do it alone.

Mike doesn't want us to go "clean" the planet and thinks it's kind of terrible. There's enough dying here. We're in a room of cut up people. Let's just get the people out and leave!

Don mumbled that they'll do it again.

Mike took Don to the control room and I helped Leo out with what he wanted to do and there's not much more to say about it, but it was finally quiet in this place for the first time.

I wrote all this last part down after we got home. I don't know why because I'm going to burn this book now and then there won't be anything left of that place at all. I don't think I ever even heard its name. So it will really be gone then. And it will be over.


End file.
